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Plato, The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro wrote:
Socrates: Now, does holiness, which is to be a kind of ministering, benefit the gods? Does it improve them? Would you agree that when you do something holy you are making the gods better?
Euthyphro: No, by Zeus; not I.
Socrates: I did not think you meant that, Euthyphro. Far from it. That is why I asked what you meant by ministering to the gods: I did not believe you meant such as that....But what kind of ministering to the gods is holiness?
Euthyphro: The kind, Socrates, with which slaves minister to their masters.
Socrates: I see. Holiness would, it seems, be a kind of service to the gods....Now, can you tell me what sort of product service to physicians would produce? Would it not be health?...What about ship builders? Is there not one product it produces?...And service to house-builders produces a house?....The tell me, my friend: What sort of product would service to the gods produce?
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This exchange between Socrates and Euthryphro is recorded as one of Plato's early
Dialogues. To summarize the backstory to this dialogue, Socrates here is questioning the meaning of holiness, in conjunction with the meaning of justice. Euthryphro suggests that justice means "ministering" to the gods, and ministering to men, thus bringing about Socrates questioning of him along the lines of what ministering (or serving) the gods means.
What does it mean to do justice to the gods? For us as Catholics, this may be rendered, "What does it mean to serve GOD? What does it mean to do justice before God?" Put simply, justice means giving to each according to what is his due. In the case of God, everything is His due; the universe is His, and we are all His subjects. His due is thus everything we have, up to an including our very lives. "Pray without ceasing" we are told (
1 Thessalonians 5:17), meaning that our every action should be to serve and glorify the LORD.
All that we have we are to give back to the LORD. But this brings us back precisely to the line of questioning followed by Socrates. Does giving what we have to GOD make Him happier? Does it benefit Him? Surely not. A being Who is already perfect cannot be improved or improved upon, so God cannot be benefited by anything we can give or do.
Still, all that we have is to be at His service, not our own. We cannot provide anything He needs, nor is it His own pride nor glory which requires our praise: besides which, the choirs of angels already sing His praises day and night, and this is the only purpose of the highest choirs, the Seraphim (see
Isaiah 6:2-3). Nor does giving Him of our possessions enrich Him in the slightest. Indeed, these are not what please God most:
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Quote:
"For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it: with burnt offerings thou wilt not be delighted. A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" ( Psalm 50:18-19).
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Why, then, does GOD ask us for our praise? Or for our sacrifices? Why should we give to GOD all that is ours, including our very lives? It does make GOD happy for us to do this, and we have hints that He is sad when we do not. Sad? How can the LORD of the universe be sad, seated upon his throne in heaven, that realm of infinite joy where, we are told, there is to be no sorrow (see
Apocalypse 21:3-4)?
Perhaps, then, there is to be no sorrow. The LORD is not saddened for His Own sake, nor does He mourn. He does not regret, and so there is no sorrow on His own part. Rather, He may experience the sadness for our sake when we turn away from Him, for this harms us and not Him. "You have made us for thyself, oh LORD, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee" wrote Saint Augustine in his
Confessions. We serve the LORD not because He needs it, but because we do. It is not He Who is enriched or improved by our service, by our worship, our praise; rather, it is we. Holiness means serving the LORD, justice means giving all to Him. He needs neither, yet we are made to do both. In failing to do either, we are therefore doing injustice not only to God, but to ourselves; we cannot injure Him, but we can injure ourselves immensely.
This is not to say that the worst effect of sin is our own damnation, for we are finite. We wrong GOD and reject Him in our sins; and though we can add but the most infinitesimal amount to His already infinite glory, we can by wronging Him commit an injustice which is infinite. Luckily for us, there can be more than one kind of infinite, and not infinities are equally vast. His justice may be greater than our injustice, but His mercy is vaster than either, and so from us true contrition is as great as any service we may give.
Tags: Catholic-Though Ts Reflections Philosophy Musings Paradoxes-of-Fa Ith
